This is the second part of a two part blog on my understanding of homosexuality and the church. I began with my story as a precursor to what got me interested in exploring God and the theology behind condoning gay people and their relationships. Based on my limited understanding of what I grew up hearing from the larger church community, I was under the impression that homosexuality was a sin and was not to be practiced. Like many people I didn't believe being gay was a choice, but I followed the common “love the sinner, hate the sin,” mantra that I hear frequently today. I believed that gay people shouldn't express their sexuality but rather were called to a life of celibacy. Which is fine and dandy if you’re not gay or don’t love someone who is gay. But my sister changed all that for me. Then the reality of requiring a whole group of people to deny a part of their very being seemed rather selfish and led me to doubt the God I believed in. Why would he create people to be gay and then ask them to live their lives alone without the ultimate bond that comes from sharing one’s life with another person?
And so I started to do what I, as a lifelong learner, do best. I set about gathering information from people who know a whole lot more than I do! To my surprise I found that Biblical scholarship is not as black and white on homosexuality as I had initially thought. But, if I learned anything in college, it was that my opinion as an undergraduate/lay person was irrelevant! So I began reading books by theologians who had the credentials to back up their statements. (In writing this Blog I refer frequently to Peter J. Gomes who is a preacher at Harvard University and the author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart. I have a bibliography listed at the end with a complete listing of my sources for further reading if you are interested.)
I found that indeed my Episcopal understanding of how to interpret Scripture was incredibly helpful in this endeavor. Like other main-line Christian faiths, the Episcopal Church does not view the Bible as a literal work. As I mentioned in my first blog, we refer to a three legged stool as a metaphor for the equal importance of Scripture, Tradition and Reason in understanding what the Bible means for us today. Thus, while I hold a high regard for the traditions of the early church, including the many liturgies and rituals as well as the basic theology of Christianity, I have developed an appreciation for the use of Reason in deciphering what the scripture means in the present.
I learned that in modern scholarship we look at the stories in the Bible from three basic view points. “The world behind the text” informs us of the background knowledge that would have influenced the authors’ writing. “The world of the text” describes what would have been the current social beliefs and values of the time that the writers would have applied to their writing. Finally, “The world in front of the text” refers to how we apply the message of scripture to our lives in the here and now (Bowe).
Because of this sort of scholarship the interpretation of scripture is not stagnant, but rather is being continuously studied and interpreted for modern application. A few common examples would be the reversal in our understanding and acceptance of slavery, (which is never directly questioned as inappropriate in scripture) interracial marriage, and women’s ordination (Gomes). All of which I could delve into in greater detail, but suffice it to say that our understanding of Christian theology was not finished thousands or even hundreds of years ago, but rather is very much a matter of contentious modern debate.
In this light I believe that homosexuality is a prejudice of Christianity that needs to be seriously studied and evaluated. It turns out I am not by any means alone in this line of thought. When I began my research I was surprised to find that there are really only seven scriptural references to homosexuality. So I went from thinking the Bible was clear in admonishing homosexual behavior to realizing that homosexuality is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments nor in the Summary of the Law. No prophet writes about it and Jesus himself remains silent on the topic. In addition, homosexuality does not seem to be a big deal to the early churches that Saint Paul and his followers were involved with. Indeed, Gomes points out that you actually have to look rather hard, (most likely with the help of a concordance!) to find homosexuality mentioned at all. Below are listed the major sets of texts from the Old and New Testaments that are generally looked to for the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality.
1) Genesis 1-2 –The Creation Story
2) Genesis 19:1-9 –Sodom and Gomorrah, with the parallel passages of Judges 19 and Ezekiel 16:46-56
3) Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 –The Holiness Code
4) Romans 1:26-27 –Regarded as the most significant of Saint Paul’s views
5) 1st Corinthians 6:9 –Pauline list of vices
a. 1st Timothy 1:10
In recent years a significant amount of scholarship has been devoted to these passages that are commonly quoted as being the definitive source of the Bible’s view of homosexuals and homosexuality. I will attempt to explain my understanding of these verses in light of this modern scholarship all the while asking the question: When the Bible mentions homosexuality, does it mean what we mean when we talk about homosexuality? First of all, the term homosexual itself didn’t exist until the late 19th century. John Boswell makes an interesting point in his 1980 study, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality that
In spite of misleading English translations which may imply the contrary, the word “homosexual” does not occur in the Bible; no extant text or manuscript, Hebrew, Greek, Syrian, or Aramaic, contains such a word. In fact none of these languages ever contained a word corresponding to the English “homosexual,” nor did any language have such a term before the late nineteenth century.
Indeed, the first use of the term in an English Bible is not until the Revised Standard Version came out in 1946. Gomes explains that recent translations apply the word homosexuality to biblical situations which the translators assume correspond to our understanding of the word so this is why, depending on the translation, homosexuality may appear in the bible. With this understanding in mind, I will progress chronologically through the passages listed above.
The creation story in Genesis is used to argue that a heterosexual relationship is what God desires for his people. The argument generally goes that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. While this is true from the text Gomes argues what is not readily apparent is that the story was written to reflect the cultural assumptions of the world the writers lived in. It makes sense that when trying to answer the question “Where do we come from?” that only a heterosexual union between a man and a woman could provide an answer. But Gomes argues that just because “heterosexuality may be the dominant form of sexuality, it does not follow that it is the only form of appropriate sexuality.” The creation story is silent on homosexual relationships, but neither does it mention friendship or singleness and yet we do not assume that they are condemned or abnormal (Siker, Gomes).
The infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:1-9 is seen to condemn homosexuality and is where the term sodomy originates. Historian John Boswell writes in his 1980 study, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, “Throughout the Middle Ages the closest word to homosexual in Latin or in any vernacular, was sodomita [which] has connoted in various times and places everything from ordinary heterosexual intercourse in an atypical position to oral sexual contact with animals. At some points in history it has referred almost exclusively to male homosexuality and at other times almost exclusively to heterosexual excess.” Furthermore Victor Furnish, tells us in his book The Moral Teaching of Paul, that in every place in the King James Version where the term sodomite is used, the reference is to male prostitutes associated with places of cultic worship. Therefore, he continues, the sodomites are condemned not because they have sexual relations with other men, but because they serve the alien gods of the Canaanite and Babylonian fertility cults.
We do not know what the people of Sodom did to provoke God to send the angels to warn Lot of trouble, but Gomes points out that by all accounts it was God’s intention to destroy the city before the angels arrived and were approached by the men of Sodom. The point of contention comes when the men of Sodom are described as wanting “to know” the angels. It is common for this sense of “to know” to be interpreted in the sexual/carnal sense of to know. However, Boswell points out that this particular form of the Hebrew verb “to know” is rarely used in a sexual sense. It occurs nine hundred and forty-three times in the Old Testament, but in only ten of those does it have the sense of carnal knowledge. He informs us that in fact this passage in Genesis is the only place in the Old Testament where it refers to homosexual relations.
Sodom is notoriously referred to as a place of wickedness but nowhere does it sate that homosexuals or homosexuality was the cause of that wickedness. The attempted homosexual rape of the Angels is horrible but is not the cause of the punishment and no one in scripture says that it was. Indeed homosexual rape, just like heterosexual rape is never to be condoned, but Gomes points out that this particular instance of attempted homosexual rape should not invalidate all homosexuals or all homosexual activity. Jeffrey S. Siker points out in Theology Today that “David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba does not make all heterosexual expressions sinful!”
The Holiness Code of Leviticus is supposed to delineate a standard of moral behavior that will distinguish Jews from the Canaanites in the new God given land (Gomes). Leviticus is full of laws that when violated, are punishable by death. Examples are children who curse their parents, adultery, incest, bestiality, and when a man lies with a male as with a woman. Gomes explains that the purpose of these laws is to build a nation that is set apart from the surrounding community. They are also forbidden from cattle inbreeding, planting fields with two kinds of seeds, from wearing clothes made from two different kinds of cloth, and men from having sexual relations with a menstruating wife to name a few. In their context, homosexual conduct was a risk to their cultural identity, protection and pro-creation. Christians however have a different theological context. We are no longer God’s people living in the Promised Land. Gomes reminds us that even Saint Paul who was a Jew says that Gentiles, ie non-Jewish Christians have the gift of the Holy Spirit without the need for the Law of Israel.
Jesus and Saint Paul make clear that the ritual purity of Leviticus is not necessary, but rather purity of heart is of primary concern. In fact Boswell argues that a distinction needs to be made between what is ritually impure and what is intrinsically wrong. He says this comes from the use of the word abomination which does not usually describe something evil like rape or left, but something that is ritually impure like eating pork or engaging in intercourse during menstruation. Boswell explains that an abomination is by definition what the Gentiles do but that does not mean it is necessarily evil or a violation of the Commandments. Therefore, he continues, homosexuality is an abomination in Leviticus not because it is evil in and of itself, but because the Gentiles do it and therefore it is ritually impure. Christians today can be rather inconsistent with their understanding of Leviticus because they regularly write off many of the laws as irrelevant in light of New Testament teaching yet hang on to the Levitical prohibitions against homosexuality (Gomes).
This brings us to the New Testament and the teachings of Saint Paul. Gomes explains that in Romans Paul is writing about the fallen nature of humankind, not about homosexuality as Paul would have understood it, nor in the sense of its current meaning. Paul speaks of passions that are out of control that have become an end in and of themselves, even idolatrous. In fact Gomes would say the real problem is that people have begun to worship sexual pleasure rather than view it as a pure and holy act. Boswell writes that the purpose of Romans 1 is to point out people who know what is right but, who because of their arrogant pride in their fallen state, choose to act contrary to that knowledge. So when Paul describes in verse 26 and 26 that “natural relations were exchanged for unnatural” among women and men “likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another,” Boswell believes Paul is not describing the conduct of homosexuals, but rather heterosexual people who performed homosexual acts.
It is not clear that Saint Paul was able to distinguish (like we need to) between homosexual people and heterosexual people who behave like homosexuals, but what is “unnatural” is acting in a way that is not one’s own nature. Gomes says that Paul may be assuming that homosexual acts, whether experienced by heterosexuals or homosexuals, always involved lust and mal intent with an unavoidable degree of exploitation where the stronger person took advantage of the weaker one. At the time, the type of homosexuality that Paul would have known was pederasty, (where the adult male exploits a younger male for sexual purposes) and male prostitution. According to this line of thought Gomes argues it is clear that Paul has no concept of a homosexual nature that is something beyond choice, not necessarily characterized by lust, mal intent, idolatry or exploitation, but that aspires to a life under the jurisdiction of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s only experience of homosexuality was the fallen pagan expression of it. Gomes does not think Paul can be condemned for that ignorance, but neither should his ignorance be an excuse for our own. He argues that to base the church’s principled objections to homosexuality and homosexuals on the basis of Paul’s lack of experience does not make sense, and may serve to counter all of the heroic points that Paul intends to make in Romans 1.
This line of thought continues in I Corinthians 6:9 where Paul is writing in response to a horrible case of heterosexual immorality in chapter 5 “where a man was living with his father’s wife.” This causes Paul to discuss how Christians should live but is not meant to be about homosexuality as we know it. Rather Gomes would say that when Paul writes of what we call homosexuality he is speaking of the “Gentile sin,” that was described earlier as willful, lustful, exploitive, avaricious, self-deceiving, self-absorbed, and thus idolatrous. I Timothy also refers to “sodomites” in a list of lawless and disobedient terms, but from Boswell we know the term sodomite refers almost exclusively to a male prostitute, and is not a Pauline synonym for “homosexual” as we understand that term.
Siker concludes his study of these biblical texts with these words:
Thus the Bible has relatively little to say that directly informs us about how to address the issue of homosexual Christians today. The Bible certainly does not positively condone homosexuality, as a legitimate expression of human sexuality, but neither does it expressly exclude loving monogamous homosexual adult Christian relationships from being within the realm of God’s intentions for humanity.
Gomes argues that in reality, Scripture has so little to say about homosexuality that it cannot be called upon to resolve the contemporary church’s debates about homosexuality or address itself to the modern complexity of human sexuality. He further argues that “we must change our position on homosexuality if that position is based upon a prejudicial and uninformed reading of scripture.” Gomes suggests that cultural conservatives use Scripture to give legitimacy to their doctrinaire prejudices and “would rather defend their ideology in the name of the authority of scripture than concede that their self-serving reading of that scripture might just be wrong and that both the Bible and the God who inspires it may be more gracious, just, and inclusive than they can presently afford to be.”
Now, back to the initial question “When the Bible mentions homosexuality, does it mean what we mean when we talk about homosexuality?” Based on this research, I would say no because in looking at what the Bible actually says about homosexuality, it is clear that the biblical writers had no concept of a homosexual relationship in which loving, monogamous, and faithful people sought to live out the implications of the gospel with as much fidelity to it as any heterosexual believer. Remember that all the Biblical authors knew of homosexuality was prostitution, pederasty, lust, and exploitation which, sadly, we know also occurs among heterosexuals. Gomes goes so far as to say that “to define contemporary homosexuals only in these terms is a cultural slander of the highest order, reflecting not so much prejudice, which it surely does, but what the Roman Catholic Church calls “invincible ignorance,” which all of the Christian piety and charity in the world can do little to conceal.”
In closing, Charles C. Hefling, an Anglican Professor of Theology at Boston College, suggests that we as Anglicans, and by extension all churches, need to advance the conversation to a discussion of what the appropriate Christian expectations should be for permanent, monogamous, faithful, intimate relationships within which the sexual act takes place, whether the relationship be heterosexual or homosexual. Hefling asks “have same-sex relationships the same potential for sacramental meaning and power” as heterosexual relationships? He believes they have because “they can, and do signify a natural good.”
Bibliography:
Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
Bowe, Barbara E. Biblical Foundations of Spirituality: Touching a Finger to the Flame. (2003, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC.)
Chellew-Hodge, Candance, Bulletproof Faith A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians. (2008 Jossey-Bass, written by a UCC minister and founder of the online magazine Whosoever for GLBT Christians).
Countryman, William, Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implication for Today. (2007, Fortess Press, by an Episcopal priest and New Testament Scholar)
Dwyer, John, Those 7 References: A Study of 7 References to Homosexuality In The Bible. (2007, written by an Episcopal priest living and ministering in Washington, DC).
Golmes, Peter J, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart. 1996, William Morrow and Company, INC. New York, NY. (Preacher to Harvard University)
Hefling, Charles. “By Their Fruits: A Traditionalist Argument,” Our Selves, Our Souls, and Bodies: Sexuality and the Household of God (Boston: Cowley, 1996).
Helminiak, Daniel A. What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality (San Francisco: Alamo Square Press, 1994) pp. 100-102
Karslake, Daniel, For the BIBLE tells me so. (2007, Film).
Robinson, Gene, In the EYE of the STORM Swept to the Center by God. (2008, Seabury Books).
Rogers, Jack, JESUS, THE BIBLE, AND HOMOSEXUALITY: EXPLODE THE MYTHS, HEAL THE CHURCH. (2006, Westminister John Knox Press, written by an originally Biblically conservative Presbyterian minister).
Siker, Jeffrey S. “How to Decide? Homosexual Christians, the bible, and Gentile Inclusion,” in Theology Today, Vol. 52, No. 2, Jully 1994, p. 226
Thelos, Philo, GOD IS NOT A HOMOPHOBE: AN UNBIASED LOOK AT HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE BIBLE, (2004, Trafford Publishing, written by an originally Biblically conservative minister).
No comments:
Post a Comment